I only recently found out about Josh
Howard & his comic book Dead@17. It is a story of
teen angst & fighting demons. So of course we love it.
It is published by Viper Comics
& has become so popular that it has a spin-off series of other creators
telling stories within the Dead@17 mythos.

QRD – Why are the trade paperback collections
in a different size than the original comics?

Josh – Simply because that is what I prefer.
It’s nice and compact and easy to carry around.

QRD – You do the writing, penciling, inking,
& coloring of most of your work. Why do you have someone else
do the lettering?

Josh – Because I would like to see my wife
every once and a while ;)

QRD – Where do the characters/letters for
the angelic language come from?

Josh – They’re not based on anything, I
just made them up.

QRD – Where did the name Bolabogg come
from?

Josh – No idea. It just came to me
when I was drawing. Same with Nara and Hazy… the characters seem
to name themselves.

QRD – What kinds of pens & brushes
do you use for inking?

Josh – I use Micron pens, usually an 02
for regular line work and 05s or 1s for heavy line work.

QRD – I know you do most of your coloring
in Photoshop. Do you think you’d ever color something predominantly
by hand?

Josh – Probably not. The closest
I get is when I use gray tone markers. If it wasn’t for Photoshop,
I would never color anything. I’m just not good at it, which is why
I never became a painter.

QRD – I saw something with your production
notes, do you usually right a full script prior to starting the comic?
How many issues would you script ahead when doing a four-issue story arc?

Josh – I do write a full script first,
but I leave plenty of room for inspiration, because often the best ideas
will come after I start drawing. Because of that, I don’t write all
4 issues first. If I change one thing, it would effect everything
else.

QRD – Why were the first three story arcs
of Dead@17 done in mini-series formats instead of a continuing series?

Josh – The main reason is because we had
no idea how it was going to do. It would have been foolish to start
with an ongoing series without any idea of how it would be received.
In fact, I was already planning to start a whole new different series following
the first D17. I thought it would take me several failures
before I managed to carve a niche for myself. Luckily, that didn’t
happen, and it did well enough to warrant a 2nd and then a 3rd series.

QRD – With Nara gone, who will be the stars
of the ongoing series?

Josh – The main star will be a girl named
Asia Black. She’s a lost soul, a troublemaker – someone you definitely
don’t want to cross. The other lead character is a guy named Zachary
Pitch, whose name might ring a bell to fans.

QRD – Are you ever upset by the color shifts
between final product & what you see on your computer screen?

Josh – Luckily, I haven’t had much of that
happen. The only problems I had recently are issues of Black Harvest
printing too dark. I got a new computer halfway through and trying
to find the exact monitor settings I was used to has been a pain.

QRD – The original Dead@17 was printed
at Kinko’s right? What was it’s size & how many did you do?
Were you satisfied with it at the time?

Josh – It was roughly the trade format
size. I made less than 50. It took me about a year to complete
from start to finish. I was working full time and it was hard to
find the momentum to keep going. So my technique changed a lot and
as a result was really uneven. But I was still enormously proud that
I was able to finish it and hold it in my hands. That moment was
really a milestone for me. I was sick of the submission process and
I didn’t want to have to draw someone else’s characters to get a job.
I had basically decided that if I wanted this career, I was going to have
to make it happen myself. No one was going to do it for me.
Of course, then Viper came along.
But they were nobodies at the time, too. We were both in the same
spot really, which is what I think made it all work.

QRD – Is there any significance to Nara’s
birthday being on July 5, 1986?

Josh – July 5 is my wife’s birthday.
1986 because Nara had to be 17 in 2003 when the book came out.

QRD – How many books do you think you could
do a month if you got yourself really disciplined?

Josh – I basically have been doing 2 at
a time for a while now. In addition to Black Harvest and the
miscellaneous D17 and other projects, I’ve been working on an original
graphic novel for DC for several months. I really looking forward
to taking it easy with only 1 book a month again.

QRD – I find your juxtapositioning of youthful
cartoon art with adult themes really brilliant. Do you see yourself
as intentionally following some kind of tradition or is it just how things
end up coming out?

Josh – It was never anything I really thought
about, so wouldn’t say it was an intentional juxtaposition. Having
said that, I think the Batman cartoon from the 90’s had a big impact on
me because it was a lot more mature and a lot more cartoony than what was
popular at the time.

QRD – What's the graphic novel you're working
on about?

Josh – The book I'm working on at DC is
written by Andi Watson and I'm handling all the art. I don't know that
I'm allowed to say too much about it yet, but it involves a goth girl and
a mystery, so I don't think my fans will be disappointed.

QRD – Since you kinda have a little in
at DC, what characters of theirs would you like to work with?

Josh – If I had my choice of their characters,
I would definitely like a shot at Supergirl. I already have a mini-series
plotted out in my head.

QRD – Having a family, how do you deal
with the relative financial insecurity of using art to support them?

Josh – It hasn’t been easy, and there are
times in the past where it’s looked pretty dire, but I try not to focus
on that. I take on a lot of extra freelance work and commissions
and sell original art to help make ends meet. It takes a lot of extra
effort to be able to do this full time, but I wouldn’t want to be doing
anything else. I’m also very lucky to have a wife who is a very talented
and successful hair stylist which helps even things out.

QRD – How did you initially get in touch
with Viper Comics?

Josh – I think it was late 2001, early
2002, and I was broke and jobless and desperate to find work. Any
kind of work. I was doing a job search online and decided to search
for comic book jobs for the heck of it. Couldn’t hurt right?
Well, I came across an ad for a local company that wanted local creators
to get in on the ground floor with them. And best of all, they were
offering money. They had a little submission test, which ended up
being some of my worst work ever, but I sent along a copy of my D17
mini-comic, which probably sealed the deal for me.

QRD – I know there’s some talk of Dead@17
being optioned for a cartoon of some sort. Would you like it to stay
with the comic book feeling the way The Maxx cartoon did or more
of a standard cartoon style?

Josh – My feeling is, and I hope this doesn’t
rub people the wrong way, is that I don’t care. Whatever happens,
happens. If the right offer is made, they can make it look like Powerpuff
Girls for all I care. I made peace long ago with the fact that
Hollywood for the most part doesn’t care about artistic vision and is going
to do what it’s going to do anyway. So it seems like a waste of my
time and energy to worry about how D17 might end up being portrayed.
I will always have my comics, and they will remain unchanged.

QRD – Is it hard to deal with others writing
from your ideas or are you happy to see stories told that you never would’ve
gotten around to telling? What about the art differences in these
situations?

Josh – It makes me thrilled actually.
It’s an amazing feeling to see other people contribute their own talents
and ideas to something I created. And I love being able to give opportunities
to undiscovered talent. A lot of the guys I’ve worked with have moved
on to do books of their own.

QRD – You have a big religious element
to your work. Most secular comics with religious elements seem to
be attacking organized religions; do you get flak from the mainstream for
having religious elements without being sacrilegious?

Josh – I knew going in that I would stand
out from the crowd to some degree because of it. Besides a couple
of snide comments, I have really yet to receive any real flak. In
fact, I tend to get the opposite reaction. I do try to portray those
things differently. It seems like the only cliché or stereotype
that it’s acceptable to perpetuate is the evil/corrupt Christian.
Does it offend me personally? No. Not much does. I’m
pretty confident in what I believe and nothing can shake that. What
bothers me is that Islam and Mohammed are considered sacred and untouchable,
but it’s okay to portray Jesus as a degenerate pervert.

QRD – Do you think your interest in the
apocalypse is related to being a kid in the early 1980’s when major nuclear
war seemed presented as a real possibility?

Josh – Well, I wouldn’t say I have an “interest”
in the apocalypse. Can it make for interesting stories? Sure.
But it’s been a bit overdone, and I wish I could’ve avoided some of that
in D17. But when you’re dealing with good versus evil on a
cosmic scale, it’s a little hard to avoid. But whatever notion of
impending apocalypse there was in D17 was mostly implied by the
characters, and they turned out to be wrong. Bolabogg/Alcasan wasn’t
the Antichrist, he failed. He had to be stopped, but he wasn’t what
they thought he was.

QRD – How do you feel about the current
price point of comics?

Josh – Not high enough! I won’t rest
until being a comic artist is as lucrative as being a rock star ;)